The Quiet Dog
Everyone had seen the red and white dog limping around the neighborhood. It almost seemed to patrol a certain block, accompanying everyone who passed by, dog-walker or not.
He was waiting on ‘his’ block as my children and I walked our dog Idabel around the neighborhood. As we came the dog quietly fell in with us, staying close. His open wounds could have come from a fight. His ribs were showing. He had no collar, and looked quite lost.
We rounded the corner, and he stayed with us. “Do you think he’s lost, Daddy?” “Yes,” I sighed, wondering what we were getting into, “He looks lost.” It seemed the most natural thing in the world to open our gate. The dog looked up at us once, as if asking permission, and trotted into our yard.
In Deuteronomy 11:15 we read, “I will provide grass in your field for your cattle and you will eat and be satisfied.” Our tradition has read this to mean that we feed our animals before eating ourselves. In accordance with Torah, we provided dog food in a flower pot before we went in to dinner. The lost dog ate, was satisfied, and disappeared into our outbuilding.
“Daddy, we should help the dog find its home, shouldn’t we?” Hashavat aveidah, returning lost property, is another mitzvah, so we went around the neighborhood, asking if anyone knew where the lost dog had come from. Everyone had seen the dog, no one knew who owned it. We tacked up signs on telephone poles.
After dinner we took a closer look. Our stray was an impressive specimen, quite muscular in spite of being underfed. Even with a limp, he moved with a sense of restrained power. There was a quiet about him. It was not just that he didn’t bark or whine, but something about him made other dogs go quiet, and people too. “It’s a very nice dog, Daddy, if no one wants it, can we keep it? Then we would have two dogs.” Umm… Well… I don’t know about the other members of my family, but I was of two minds about the dog.
One the one hand, we clearly were in the presence of a creature with great kavod, dignity. He was extremely polite and naturally attentive in a way I had seldom seen in a canine. I watched him read our body language to figure out what we wanted him to do. A digression: Can anything without a soul have that sort of presence? According to Judaism do animals have souls? Judaism’s inner teaching says that all things created, have some spark of divinity within them, even a piece of granite. In other words the world itself is en-souled. Human beings are uniquely endowed with a neshamah, an independent flame of God-ness that gives us free will, the ability to say the word “I”, and a moral sense of right and wrong. Somewhere between granite and person, a steady presence shone forth from the dog’s amber eyes as he looked at us through the back door.
The dog also made me nervous: He looked at least part pit bull terrier. He had a head and jaws that looked capable of crushing bricks. Idabel, for whom other canines are all doggy friends, only huddled against the door to be let in when we tried to put her in the yard. Besides, who knew how he had been trained? Who knew what killer instincts lurked inside that brick-crushing head? “We’re sorry, kids,” we hedged, “Our house and yard are only big enough to have one dog. Besides, you complain about taking care of the animals we have now. No second dog.”
The animal shelter? The nice lady on the phone explained that few owners reclaim their dogs from the shelter, animals are euthanized after three days, and pit bulls with open wounds are rather low on the cuteness factor adoptable dogs need.
What to do now? The Jewish value tzar ba’alei chayyim (not causing suffering to animals) gave us a challenge. We did not fit our own image of pit bull owners. Naomi made us promise not to send him to the shelter. We decided to call him Walter for the time being.
Pit bull terriers unsettle lots of people. Following a number of cases here in Oklahoma of savage attacks by pit bulls, one state legislator has proposed legislation that would ban the breed entirely. What’s Jewish about this question? As with any Jewish question, there is not one simple answer but a number of perspectives to weigh. The basic principle of Jewish law is that an owner is responsible for preventing their property from causing damage, including animals. The question comes down to how dangerous an individual or species of animal is by nature. The Talmud teaches: “Do not breed a kelev ra (savage dog), nor permit a loose stairway,” because either of these “will place blood on your home.” Elsewhere the commonsense law appears that all dogs must be kept chained to protect the public. Some voices from our tradition say that, well, there are dogs, and there are dogs: the kelev ra (literally ‘bad dog’) and the kofri kind of dog which is useful and safe as a pet.
“Well, ‘Walter,’” we mused among ourselves, (while he looked in from outside with those hopeful amber eyes) “Are you a ‘bad dog’ by virtue of your breeding? Does the Talmud along with State Rep. Wesselhöft command us to ship you off without pity to the shelter? Or do you have a good nefesh (animal soul) in you, quiet and full of dignity?”
A few days later, a tenant of a congregant came by to look at Walter. He said he would take him to his vet to have him checked out. If the dog was healthy, he would take him. The family all came out to say goodbye to Walter the pitbull. The man called a little later: “Well, I’ve got bad news for you. He’s a great dog, and you’re not getting him back.” I told him we just wanted to see the dog in a good home. I have to say we all felt a little mixed, except Idabel, who was happy to be top dog again.
